


The White Album

by Caesia390



Series: Incomplete Alternate Universe Musings [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-21
Updated: 2020-02-22
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:27:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 4,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22840960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caesia390/pseuds/Caesia390
Summary: A collection of vignettes, life for the Potters and friends in a world where Voldemort never existed.
Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter
Series: Incomplete Alternate Universe Musings [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1642060
Kudos: 6





	1. Chapter 1

...

Stella was born with the complete lyrics to every Beatles song ever recorded already imprinted in her mind. She realised this when Grandpa Evans made a joke about it, back before he died, but she recognised the statement as truth. Dad had foolishly tried to argue with her about it once when she was about eight. Mum let it get to the stage of screaming and shouting before she stepped in and calmly told Dad to, “Just drop it, James. You can’t win,” with a knowing smile at Stella as Dad fumed and didn’t see.

That was when Stella knew that Mum was on her side. They could still have horrible fights, but Mum knew when to misrepresent Stella’s behaviour to Dad. And Stella alone was entrusted with Mum’s best-kept secrets, the location of her Hob Nobs, for instance. Even Uncle Sirius, employing everything from puppy dog eyes to the most heinous tickling charms, had never once gotten her to break.

Stubborness was Stella’s greatest virtue. Once, for a solid year, she had gone to bed early, without dessert, every single night her parents served broccoli. Shrieking sobs from her bedroom to remind them of her displeasure. And when they cast silencing charms, she shrieked louder. Just so they would know, when they healed her throat the next day, how much she had suffered. It had taken a year, but they had learned.

It was when she found out that there were no cd players at Hogwarts that Stella knew she didn’t want to go.

“What do you mean there are no cd players? What about turntables?”

And the grown-ups had all looked at each other (Remus and Sirius were over, which meant they had been blasting their old glam LPs and jumping around and singing like idiots), trying to wordlessly agree on what to say.

“Well, it’s like this, kid, they’re not exactly… allowed…” Uncle Sirius had that gleam in his eye that meant he was up to something. Stella didn’t care.

“You want me to go to school to a place for months and months and it doesn’t allow cd players?!”

“Stella, hon, you know that electricity interferes with magic. That’s why we built this special room.” Mum, trying to reason with her.

“And Hogwarts has a special room?”

“Well, no, but there are ways _around…_ ”

And they tried to explain to her – decoding charms, amplification charms, the proper application of arithmancy, a bit of finesse… Stella was having none of it. It made no sense to learn all that when she could just plug it in and hit ‘on.’ She made up her mind. If this was an indication of things to come, she was having none of it. She didn’t want to go. She said so.

And so the battle began.

Harry, who had just turned seventeen and gotten his apparation license, took to rolling his eyes and vanishing the moment Stella or Dad opened their mouths in the same room. Ned felt that the entire fight was a personal threat, a conspiracy to make it hard for him to study. He would march up to him room and slam the door, then play music, dark and furious symphonies, on the stereo he had charmed, with the volume all the way up, just to make a point. Stella considered this behaviour very immature.

Dad was also being an arse. It went without saying. Now he punished her for _everything_. Didn’t clean her room, didn’t study her maths, kept _talking back_. Well of course she talked back! What, did he think she would just stand there and _take it?_ He was being a right bastard, and she told him so. Shouted it, actually, and his hair had caught on fire.

That earned her her worst punishment in three years. She couldn’t really remember ever seeing her father so angry. It was almost impressive.

Mum had proved just as unreasonable. Saying that Stella had powers and she had to learn how to control them, even if, later, she chose to live as a muggle and never, ever used magic again. _Pleading_ with her to just submit. Finally, standing up tall and slim and Stella suddenly remembered that her mother used to wear platforms, with her long hair ironed straight. How impossibly tall she must have seemed then… “You’re going, Stella, and that’s that. If you want to drop out when you’re sixteen, we’ll talk.”

Then Stella’s hope was broken, and it was no more yelling, no more arguments or insults, just pitiful tears of misery by the time they were physically dragging her onto the platform. It wasn’t an act. Never had the world seemed so unfair. She had fought and fought, but her ultimate powerlessness was staring her in the face. She wanted to die.

“For God’s sake, Stel, will you give it a rest?”

“Fuck off, Harry,” she sniffled. Harry chuckled.

Despite herself, Stella felt herself starting to laugh in return; it made her hiccup. She hadn’t really expected a reaction from Harry. He tended to forget that she even existed. But here he was, sitting next to her not saying anything even though he had his own friends. The train had already started to move. Ned was still mad at her and had sulked off to another compartment without a word. Stella suddenly realised that she was here, it was real, it was starting, she couldn’t stop it, and she was terrified. Harry, her stupid older brother who only cared about his broomstick, was suddenly a huge comfort, just by being there. She even pitied him, unfortunate enough to look so much like Dad. After all, he hated Dad, too.

She was almost calm when the train stopped. She fought hard not to be impressed by Hagrid, by the lake, by the giant squid. It was all stupid, anyway. John, Paul, George, and Ringo hadn’t needed a big spooky castle with floating candles, ghosts. And the staff would have to spell the ridiculous pointed hat onto her head if they expected her to wear it… Stella didn’t care that none of the other students seemed to mind. There was Ned, at the Ravenclaw table; he looked like a cheap muggle halloween costume.

“Potter, Stella!”

Stella used to want to be in Gryffindor, back before she hated the idea of Hogwarts altogether. That was also back when she looked up to her oldest brother. Now she stared over at that table with distaste. Everything suddenly seemed miserable again. She wished she had tried harder to get Mum and Dad to keep her home.

The hat dropped over her head.

And the hat… laughed.

It was so surprising that Stella forgot to be miserable for a moment. And then she heard, still a sound like chuckling in the powerful, leathery voice: _“Well, well, the youngest Potter. I must admit I had a feeling about you when your older brother was here… How nice to see I was right. I trust you’ll have no objections to SLYTHERIN!!!”_

He didn’t even give her a chance to argue. Nevermind that she probably would have wound up agreeing. Dad would never, ever forgive her… That thought didn’t feel as triumphant as it should have. Stunned, she slid off the chair and made her way to a table with a bunch of big, scary, mean-looking students, few of whom were clapping or looked happy to see her at all. A much older blonde boy, probably in her brother’s year, was sneering at her like she was something he had wiped off his shoe.

Stella sat up a little straighter. She didn’t want to be here. She hadn’t asked for this. And if those jerks thought they could push her around just because she was small… Well. She figured there was one advantage to being forced into wizarding school. Here, Mum and Dad weren’t around to stop her hexing people senseless when they made her mad.

...


	2. Chapter 2

Music was a constant in the Potter household. James put on Pink Floyd when he had to think. Lily preferred to bop around to new wave, classical, punk. When he was twelve, Ned went through a Jefferson Airplane phase that bordered on obsession. Stella knew the words to every Beatles song by the time she was seven.

But it was when Remus and Sirius would visit, stay for dinner and into the evening... It was when the grown-ups pulled out the old glam LPs that their house really rocked. Lily lip-syncing Bowie as she and Remus shimmied and twisted in each other's arms; Sirius jumping around to Gary Glitter with enough enthusiasm to bring pictures off the walls. And with T-Rex... There was no escape. Sirius went positively mad, invoked some sort of ancient magic, and everyone present, from James who persistently lounged and watched, to the children when they could barely walk, had to dance. Didn't even mean to, but found themselves moving, thrashing in place or throwing themselves around until they fell, exhausted, sated.

Roxy Music to finish off the evening. This was when the couples re-formed and Ned and Harry and Stella snuck out of the room. Couldn't stomach the sight of their parents gazing at each other, kissing... Remus and Sirius weren't quite so gross, but still...

And it was this music, snatches of song in his head, that Harry hummed where no one could hear him, not even himself, scanning the air, keeping some of his attention on the players, waiting for the snitch.

...


	3. Chapter 3

Petunia detested waiting. She had wrung her gloves (thank goodness not her nice ones) into a wretched, wilted mess. She had crossed and uncrossed her legs, sure that the wooden bench was somehow damaging her skirt. She didn’t know what to look at. The dappled sunlight glowing around the leaves was too bright. The children playing on the park equipment were too noisy. Surely Dudley had been much nicer when he was that age.

It wasn’t as if Lily would appreciate, could ever appreciate, the trouble Petunia took. Every hair in place. The embodiment of poise. …Or she tried to be. But Lily like a whirlwind, coming and going as she pleased (fifteen minutes late!), looking however she wished… And she had stopped taking example from her sister the moment that blasted letter came, twenty-six years before. Really, Petunia didn’t know why she bothered. Vernon resented these visits, and he was quite right. Lily and her sort had nothing to do with them. And then she didn’t even show her elder sister the courtesy of turning up on time, so they could get this interview over with.

If it weren’t for their parents, who had strived all their lives to help their girls get along, who had smiled with a little less hope each day until they’d died. Papa with the cancer on his bed of pain, and Mama, a year later, on her lonesome bed of grief. Died and now it was up to her, her and Lily, to try to honour them, to try to accomplish where they had failed, and Lily couldn’t even be bothered to come.

“Aunt Petunia!!!”

Petunia looked up as if in fright, to see the dark-haired dervish, Stella, running toward her, and the tall, stately form of Lily strolling casually behind her.

“Deportment, child! Don’t strangle me.” But the hug was soft, and Petunia pulled out a handkerchief she had embroidered and slipped it into the girl’s small hand as she let go. Vernon never questioned Petunia’s needlework. If he did, she didn’t know what she would tell him. Making gifts for her neice… Perhaps it was that part of her that had always wondered… But the doctors had told her with ruthless certainty, after her son was born… And, anyway, Dudley was the perfect child. No woman could possibly wish for more.

Lily’s laughter was the same as always, careless and beautiful as Petunia related her problems. Her cooking and cleaning, Dudley’s school, the neighbors… No, of course it wouldn’t seem important to her, when she could probably fix all that with a wave of her dreadful… her wand… And Lily complained casually about that man and his friends. Petunia remembered them all well, as brutally unpleasant as the few times she had met them had been. Lily smiled at her grimace.

All in all, nothing had changed. Petunia and her sister still inhabited entirely separate worlds, and Petunia didn’t even mean that world and her own. Lily’s whole attitude, her values… It was hard to believe they were from the same country, let alone siblings.

Though it was comforting, in a way, to meet on neutral ground. Vernon and the neighbors weren’t here. Lily’s people weren’t here. …Petunia could almost imagine this as another afternoon in their parents’ home, sipping tea and lounging, for once, where the people who mattered couldn’t see her. And Lily putting aside her horrid friends and habits and watching Top of the Pops for a good hour while Petunia wondered blankly how on earth she could find it entertaining.

Stella had grown bored listening to their conversation about ten minutes in and had now claimed an unoccupied swing. She was much prettier to watch than the group of rude, grubby youngsters who had been there earlier. And how she had grown! No more pink frills but denim trousers on that petite form… Petunia sighed.

The sun had gone down a bit while Lily prattled. The shade was pleasant now. If Petunia didn’t know better, she would have judged herself content.

…


	4. Chapter 4

She could hear them clamouring down the hallway, boisterously arguing about which was better – James’s flying Ferrari or Sirius’s bike, the Bitch, which had been rebuilt more times that Tonks could remember. The Ferrari was faster, but Tonks could tell by James’ quiet that Sirius was making a persuasive case for the feeling of the wind in his hair.

“Hi, Sirius! Hi, James!” She leaned back from her desk to beam at them.

“Hiya, kid.” Sirius grinned and ruffled her hair.

“Glad you two gentleman decided to show up to work today,” Kingsley contributed.

James laughed loudly. “Oh, we’re not here to work. Remus is in the Himalayas this month, so Sirius has to forage for food. Lily got sick of him knocking over our rubbish bins and persuaded me to suggest the fine selection of sandwiches at the office…”

“And as I’d forgotten the existence of such an office, let alone the way to it, the honourable Master Prongs generously agreed to direct me,” Sirius continued, seating himself on a corner of their map table and conjuring an apple.

“You’ll find your desk under the mammoth pile of overdue paperwork over there.” Kingsley spoke gravely, his face completely straight. He caught Tonks’ eye and glinted, barely perceptible, before making a show of devoting himself to his own work. Tonks found herself grinning madly.

The truth was that Sirius had been in Romania for three weeks, on some dangerous business a Junior Auror wasn’t allowed to know the details of. Tonks was ecstatic to have him back. It was impossible to ever worry about Sirius, but work had been markedly less exciting without her cousin’s particular brand of the Black insanity. …Well, when he did show up. Kingsley hadn’t been entirely joking about that.

“Well, Padfoot, I’ll leave you to it. Shaklebolt. Nymphadora.” And with a mock-salute, Potter had swept out of their office, supposedly to make his way to his own. While not as bad as Sirius, James still managed to spend more time out of his office than in it. And like Sirius, he nonetheless seemed to get more done than anyone else at the Ministry. Tonks didn’t really understand what James’s job as a legislator entailed, but she knew he was one of the most popular and powerful men in the government.

“So what’s new?” Sirius asked around a mouthful of apple. He had not yet relinquished the map table.

“Rosier’s back from France. The Longbottoms are following his movements.” Kingsley nodded to Dawlish, who rifled through the stack of active files before finding the right one and handing it to Sirius. Tonks held her breath.

Sirius frowned down at the folder in his lap. “All this work for a drug dealer?” He looked up sharply. “It’s not because…”

“Yes, he’s been contacting some of his old friends. The Knights of Walpurgis.”

Sirius started grumbling about how they were just a bunch of stuck-up aristocrats who wouldn’t know how to make their own coffee, let alone manage a coup d'état. Tonks released her breath. He wasn’t impressed. This was to be her first big assignment, her first really dangerous infiltration…

“You know Malfoy’s going to do everything he can to keep the Ministry out.”

Sirius chuckled suddenly, and Tonks knew he would throw himself into the endeavor. Anything to take the Malfoys, Blacks, Lestranges down a notch… That’s all it was to him; a personal grudge.

Sometimes it was annoying, having Sirius for a second cousin. Annoying, trying to deal with his carelessness. Tonks had a sudden flashback to the day she had confessed her crush on Remus. Sirius had laughed uncontrollably while it dawned on her slowly and horribly that Sirius and Remus weren’t “just flatmates.” The look on Remus’s face as he glanced over to see what was so hilarious. She had been eighteen.

“Hey, they got Nyphmadora Tonks down here as an undercover… Sure you can handle it, kid?” Smirking at her, teasing.

Tonks concentrated hard, and when she stuck her tongue out at him, it was a foot long, green, and slimy, and nearly smacked him in the face.

...


	5. Chapter 5

XXX

Ten years later from when you were fifteen and right side up now, she married the bastard, but you’re right side up and still sneering and she’s still smiling.

Something in her eyes reminds you of Dumbledore – distant and indulgent. You cast aspersions on her character, on the hypocrisies she turns a profit from – taking what was yours, what was dark and secret, repackaging and selling it, and it isn’t guilt in that distant smile. It’s acknowledgement. Selling what you can’t sell, Severus, because you are who you are. Selling charms she can sell, sea shells, because she is who she is – outsider and beautiful and Gryffindor. It burns you because you can’t, but her eyes say, work for me and you can.

Because Lucius grows tired of fighting for you – only so much he can do in the Ministry, and while there will always be demand for sinister exploration, controversial, powerful, there will never be widespread acceptance of it.

And that’s where Lily Evans (Potter) comes in. Your name on her papers. A reference. A footnote.

Acknowledged.

Arcane but respected.

While she tears your magic apart and takes the more palatable bits to make her own.

You work late nights, sometimes. Most of the research is correspondence, but it comes down to practical experiments, and you must see her healthy, happy, bright, beautiful, sickening to you. With those fleeting smiles when she checks herself, tries to hide just how amusing she finds your discomfort.

Much of the time you manage to forget who she is, after the initial self-disgust, see only her mind, but there is the year when you meet her and she is pregnant. There are those few times when she brings her older son to the laboratory (and you don’t wonder why there was no one else to look after him, strange child with the hideous mop head and her bewitching eyes).

She can’t hold in her smile when she invites you to dinner.

And your only comfort (your name on her papers, a footnote, an acknowledgement, but published where they had spat on you before, those bigoted, blind, so-called Light journals) – her glimmering, laughing smile when she invites you to dinner and you refuse, as she knew you would, and you realise that she is laughing because James must find this collaboration between you and his wife many times more revolting than you do.


	6. Chapter 6

Potter had angled the bludger perfectly. The ground was opening her wide green arms, coming up to meet him.

Draco slammed into the earth and struggled to push himself up, spitting out mouthfuls of grass and dirt. His head was spinning; he couldn’t see. But he could hear—Harry’s delighted chuckles. Harry swooping gracefully down to gloat.

“Laugh all you want, Potter,” Draco sneered, able to focus now on that smug face. “You weren’t smiling when I sent you to the hospital wing last week.”

Potter rolled his eyes and tugged Draco to his feet. “Whatever, Malfoy, that one was a foul.”

Well, Potter did have a point… Summoning his broomstick to him, Draco had to suppress a smirk. And what a foul it had been. The arc of blood suspended for one beautiful moment in mid air, Harry’s expression after Draco had “accidentally” rammed his elbow into his face. Penalty shot to Gryffindor, but with Potter out of the picture Slytherin had won the game.

Back in the air in the here and now and Potter’s turn to guard. Draco turned all his attention to the game.

Unorthodox, perhaps, for opposing captains to practice together, to hone their skills in one-on-ones so that they knew each other’s moves and mindsets perfectly. Unorthodox, the sort of amicable hatred they shared anyway… Potter the bold, bright Gryffindor, spending his time with mudbloods and paupers. Draco the self-serving Slytherin, with a posse of sycophants and goons. But they were both rich and proud; they both had overbearing fathers they resented the hell out of. So it was something like understanding; it was the challenge of besting each other.

“You’re really a shite seeker, Draco; just give it up,” Harry had said. The remark left him burning with indignation, but nonetheless Draco had swallowed his pride. It was worth it, to see the mild surprise on Harry’s face when dark, small Dolohov showed up on the pitch. Worth it when the third-year came out of nowhere to snatch the snitch a meter from Potter’s face. Worth it, flying in formation as chaser, flinging the quaffle through the goal again and again… Leave it to a Gryffindor to unwittingly offer good advice. Draco felt no compulsion to return the favour.

His father had been displeased at Draco’s acceptance of a less prominent position, but the captain badge that came with his letter sixth year passified the old man. Somewhat.


	7. Chapter 7

Ned frowned out of the high tower. He had come up here to read without distraction. It just figured that the first thing he saw when he glanced out the window was a red blur that was his brother. Playing quidditch with that Malfoy.

Ned hated quidditch. He hated Malfoy, and he hated his brother. He hated the way Harry would look at him, his deep green eyes like Mother’s eyes troubled and confused, like he didn’t want to bother to find out why his little brother hated him. Taking it for granted, taking it all for granted that Mother and Father liked him best, expected the most out of him. Stella was the baby (Though she’d be at Hogwarts next year. Finally, he’d have a real friend.). Ned was nobody. And popular, smart, powerful Harry didn’t get it.

Well, Ned had access to the exclusive Ravenclaw library. Ned had independence. And while Harry would be having yet another shouting match with Father, Ned would be up in his room, studying, and he’d make his own way in the wizarding world, regardless of what Father wanted. Only Uncle Remus understood him, but he was off travelling in inaccessible places half the time, working on his articles.

In the meantime, Ned had his hero, Severus Snape. The famous scientist and philosopher was a notorious misanthrope, didn’t need anyone or anything. And while Ned wasn’t far enough in school to understand most of what Snape wrote, he got the general idea. Magic without boundaries. It was hard to wrap his mind around. It was exciting. It was more than what anyone in his family could do.

Someday, he would meet Severus Snape.

Someday, he would persuade Severus Snape to teach him.


	8. Chapter 8

Harry was looking for Hermione, but it was Ned he found engrossed in a book in the library. “Go away, Harry, like you would be interested.” But he looked anyway, and, to his surprise, the haughty, bored-looking portrait on the book’s slipcover was familiar.

He read the name on the byline... Severus Snape. Harry had run into him in an alley once when he was ten. Literally. It had been dark and dirty, and suddenly there were miles of expensive black robes and a sneering face and Harry had been sure he was going to be cursed.

Then Lily had shown up behind him (he had run away), and she laughed when she saw the tall, dark man. “Severus, this is Harry. Harry, this is Severus Snape. Now shake hands.” She was grinning at Snape and Harry had been too confused to do anything but obey her, with Snape staring down at him with the blackest, unfriendliest eyes Harry had ever seen. Harry stared back and finally Snape gave up trying to melt him or whatever with his gaze. Then the adults conversed like he wasn’t even there. Harry gathered that Snape worked with his mother and hated his father. A clipped goodbye, then Snape continued on his business, and Lily dragged him back to Diagon Alley, reaming him out as she had failed to do when Snape was present. For weeks afterward, Harry had wondered if his mother was going to leave James for Snape. He wondered if he would feel sad about it.

Months passed and his parents stopped yelling so much. Harry forgot about it. Then the Triwizard Tournament and seeing Viktor Krum in person struck a note of recognition. But it was only now that Harry put it all together…

“Severus Snape,” he said. Ned started, had probably forgotten he was standing there. “Yeah, Mum knows him. She introduced me to him once.” His brother blinked at him rapidly, those owlish brown eyes, his mouth dropping open.

Take that.

XXX


End file.
